ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies

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The color and size of a smallish tabloid newspaper but produced
with the care of an art book, Moomin is a delight to
hold and to read. It is 12 inches tall, hardbound in a colorful panorama
of Jansson's characters, and printed on thick paper subtly tinted
light yellow. As with each volume in the attractively designed Walt & Skeezix series,
Drawn & Quarterly has again created a beautiful book that, through
its high quality, honors the art of comic-making.

Indeed, if there is one flaw in Moomin, it is visible
only because the Walt & Skeezix books set such a
high standard. Reading Moomin, one wishes for contextual
material comparable to that provided by Jeet Heer in the volumes
of Frank King's strip. Alisia Grace Chase's single-page afterword
provides a helpful capsule biography of Jansson and suggests connections
between the author's life and her fictional creations, notably that
the satirical comments on the art world may derive from her own life.
More information of this sort would have been welcome, as would have
dates for the comic strips – Chase indicates that they ran
in the London Evening News in 1953, but no specific
dates appear on the strips themselves. However, this is a quibble,
derived from the desire to know precisely where the Moomin strips
fit into both the lore of Jansson's Moomin Valley and their contemporary
historical moment. (Or, to put this another way: Like the Nibling
in Moominpappa's Memoirs, your reviewer likes educational
games.)

Even without those dates, we can nonetheless place these strips
at a crucial juncture in the development of the Moomin world. The
comics in this first volume appear to have been written roughly in
the middle of the Moomin saga – after the fourth of the series'
nine novels, and after the first of its three picture books.[1] Appearing
at this moment, these strips fall in between the earlier, more playful
Moomin works and the later, more existential ones. Early in the first
of four episodes in this book, Moomin (as Moomintroll is called in
these comics) laments his lot: "What an unfortunate boy am I, not
having a Pappa and a Mamma to arrange these things for me" (8). Until
his long-lost parents show up at the beginning of episode two, readers
new to the series could be forgiven for thinking him an orphan. In
the novels up to this point, Moomin has always had parents – parents
who are more than a little eccentric, and who, in Moominsummer
Madness (1955), get separated from their son for several chapters.
But they are always around. The loneliness Moomin experiences early
in these strips – especially in the first two episodes – looks
ahead to Moominland Midwinter (1958), in which Moomin
wakes up during the winter, while the rest of his family continues
to sleep (Moomins hibernate during the coldest months). In that book,
he feels "frightened" and "so terribly lonely" (7). In Moomin,
he confesses to even darker feelings: "So I said to myself: Death
is preferable to being alone when everyone but me has fathers and
mothers and wives" (34). Significantly, however, he voices this thought
only in retrospect, while walking comfortably between his two parents.

Like the novels and picture books, these comics treat serious themes
with humor. Jansson's light touch for dark subjects emerges in the
second episode when, after Moomin is reunited with his parents, they
promptly wander off again. Moominpappa, enticed by the adventure
of living in a cave, persuades Moominmamma to join him, even though
she worries about leaving their Moomin by himself – an anxiety
that she expresses through housecleaning. When Moomin wakes up to
find himself alone again, he says, with a tear in his eye, "Father
and mother have been lost in the spring cleaning!" Leavening Moomin's
sadness with a joke, Jansson has Sniff reply, "There you are, never tidy
up!" Snufkin wisely adds, "I expect they have just gone off for a
while. . . . Have you never wanted to run away from home? Even parents
need a change sometimes" (42). With parents prone to childishness,
and children given to philosophical musings, the Moomin strips – like
the books – offer pleasures for readers of many ages.

The differences between the philosophies of each character provide
a venue for Jansson's satirical impulses. Sniff, who is most interested
in making money, concocts an "elixir of life" made of milk, water,
honey, and pepper. Moomin asks, "You believe this will rejuvenate
people?" Sniff responds, "Main thing is to make the buyer believe" (13).
Jansson's sly caveat emptor is as relevant today as
a half-century ago, as is her good-natured mockery of artists and
celebrities. Providing occasion for an amusing commentary on modern
art, Sniff breaks a statue, then glues it back together again. Looking
at his accidentally cubist achievement, he observes, "She's more
modern now" (19). Moomin's third narrative, in which
Moominpappa and the Snork Maiden (Moomin's girlfriend) drag Moomin
and his mother off to the Riviera, offers a gentle satire of the
lifestyles of the rich and famous. Of particular interest are Jansson's
caricature of Audrey Hepburn (as "Audrey Glamour") and the story's
commentary on the tendency to tolerate, from a rich person, behavior
for which a poor person would receive censure. When the Moomins move
into a hotel, the hotel staff assumes they are eccentric millionaires: "They
act very queer in room 883. But one is used to millionaires," observes
a bellhop (58). Not at all wealthy, the Moomins thought they were
staying not in a hotel but as guests in Audrey Glamour's home.

An indifference to material things – a key part of the
Moomins' charm – also makes them ideal observers of modern
capitalist society. And yet Jansson does not idealize their bohemian
lifestyle. She seems at once bemused by their naïveté and pleased
by their innocent enthusiasm for living life on their own terms.
After the Moomin's helicopter (which, not unlike the cat bus in Miyazaki's My
Neighbor Totoro, has a personality of its own) decides to
abandon them, stranding them without any provisions, Moominpappa
declares, "We'll manage! . . . With imagination and faith all problems
will be solved!" (79). His sense of possibility speaks to the Moomin
family's ability to endure: their underlying hopefulness sustains
them. Yet, in the next panel, Moominmamma provides a reality check
to her husband's romantic sense of adventure. With furrowed brow
and (as always) handbag at her side, she hurries off, thinking "Food – food
. . . food for my dear family" (79). Understanding that dreams cannot
overcome hunger, she provides the physical nourishment that keeps
the family going. The practical partner, Moominmamma, kills a wild
boar, and, since she always carries salt and matches in her handbag,
is able to roast and season it – all the while worrying whether
their dinner had a wife (80). Injecting comic fantasy into the seriousness
of this endeavor, the boar's angry wife shows up and chases the family
until they ask, "Please, can't you forgive us for eating your husband?" The
boar considers the question and says, "Yes. In fact he was an awful
bore" (81). The pun-ny humor and sudden narrative twists allow the
story to oscillate between peril and chuckles in a single strip.

These comics also highlight Jansson's delight in metanarrative,
a prominent feature in her first picture book, The Book About
Moomin, Mymble and Little My (1953). In a strip from Moomin,
one little character stands in front of the boundary between two
panels, and addresses another little character who stands to the
right of the final panel, looking in. The first character says, "Oh,
I'm so glad to see you Cousin Shadow! Would you take my place in
the story, I'm getting married!" (35). He does, and the story continues.
Jansson also delights in calling attention to her own artifice by
playing with the boundaries of the panels. Many are straight lines,
but Jansson also creates the boundary with wood, a tape measure,
broom, hose, barbed wire, rope, door, pearls, curtain, and tree.
These boundaries create a visual unity by weaving story elements
into the layout, but they also break the fourth wall, as items from
the narrative step out of the strip and into the frame. Her flexible
sense of natural laws offer both humor and narrative opportunity
in Moomin, as when, sailing along, the Moomins find
a floating crate filled not with whiskey but swear words. (No actual
curses appear: scrabbly little creatures personify the rude words.)
As Moominpappa explains, "Must be some sailor who's stopped swearing
and tossed all his swear words overboard" (39). As a "fun" way to
get rid of them, Moominpappa sends the nasty words to Aunt Jane,
since "she's always bullying us" (40). This gift does not please
their wealthy aunt, who threatens to disinherit them. When Moominpappa
explains that they only sent the curses "for fun" and they are in
fact "really very fond" of her, Aunt Jane is touched: "Fond? Nobody
has ever used that word to me before."

As Aunt Jane's response suggests, Moomin is ultimately
about love – the love that nurtures friendship and creates
community, the love of creative interplay between words and images,
and, above all, the love of laughter. All the more reason to applaud
Drawn & Quarterly's publication of this volume, and to eagerly
await the volumes to come. Up until now, only one collection of these
comics had ever been published in English: Moomin 1 (1957),
long out of print, gathered only the first three narratives. Fifty
years later, Moomin reacquaints us with the Moomin family's
adventures on the comics page. What's more, as the best comic strips
do, Moomin should please the young, the old, and everyone
in between – children, parents, grandparents. Even Aunt Jane.

Notes

[1] The translation and publication
history make establishing a chronology a little tricky. However,
Jansson appears to have created these strips before Farlig
Midsommar (1954; published in English as Moominsummer
Madness, 1955), and after Muminpappans Bravader: Skrivna
av Honom Själv (1950; in English as The Exploits of
Moominpappa, Described by Himself, 1952; revised version
[1968], in English, as Moominpappa's Memoirs, 1994), Trollkarlens
Hart (1948; in English as The Happy Moomins,
1951; Finn Family Moomintroll, 1965), Kometjakten (1946;
in English as Comet in Moominland, 1951), and Småtrollen
och den stora översvämningen (1945; The Little Trolls
and the Great Flood, not published in English). Likewise,
the strips in volume 1 appear after Hur gick det sen?(1952;
in English as The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My,
1953), but before Vem ska trösta Knyttet? (1960; in
English as Who Will Comfort Toffle?, 1960) and Skurken
i muminhuset (1980; An Unwanted Guest, not
published in English).

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